


Shouldn't Be Here

by Chaneladdict



Category: Agent Carter (TV), Captain America - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, M/M, Tumblr Prompt
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-02-14
Updated: 2018-02-14
Packaged: 2019-03-18 16:43:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,482
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13685643
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Chaneladdict/pseuds/Chaneladdict
Summary: Tumblr Ask - Angst Asks 'I know I shouldn't be here...'With Steve back, Bucky & Peggy's relationship is up in the air. Choices need to be made.Or do they?How Buggy became WW3some because I have no self control.





	Shouldn't Be Here

**Author's Note:**

  * For [summerchild-madeofstone](https://archiveofourown.org/gifts?recipient=summerchild-madeofstone).



> A drabble request that got OUT OF CONTROL in two ways. 1. Too many words for a ~drabble. I can’t drabble apparently, I’m too wordy. 2. Buggy accidentally became a ‘becoming an ot3′ thing with Steve . Because apparently my brain just registers ot3 when any one of them is mentioned. / headdesk.
> 
> Regardless… Here we go: 
> 
> *Non beta'd all mistakes are mine.
> 
> xo

**I know I shouldn’t be here.**

 

“I know, I shouldn’t be here…” he admitted, standing by her fence that sat rusting outside her apartment building. She was carrying groceries back from the store, musing to herself that she was glad she hadn’t been caught in the rain. Sprinkling as it was now, she had hoped to get inside before her paper bags got soaked.

She sighed at the sight of him, all spiffed up but with that sad look on his face, the look he’d worn since - 

“Grab this, make yourself useful and come on up.”

He seemed surprised at this.

“Your hair gel gets wet and you might just slip and slide all the way back to Red Hook.”

He grimaced, but took both her bags, allowing her to freely root for her keys.

It was awkward taking the stairs with him behind her, knowing his eyes were on her, more than likely on her arse. But pushed those thoughts aside as she pushed inside and shed her coat, watching as he comfortably found his way to the kitchen with her things, and started to unpack just like he would have before.

It takes them both a second to realise that hey, maybe this isn’t how it should be now? And he stops, nursing a bag of rice in his hands.

“Look I didn’t to call at a bad time - I just -” he sighed again, still squeezing the rice. 

“I just missed you? And I know what we agreed -”

“We agreed what you suggested.”

He looked to the floor again, and God she hated his sad face, it was worse than his guilty face. 

“I know and I’m sorry, but I did … I do think it was for the best, that we just make a clean break.”

“And yet here you are.” She added, gently taking the rice from him, before it ended up all over her floor.

“Right…” he stalled, before Peggy looked back on him.

“Out with it, James. We’re both much too old for games. You missed me, yes? That’s why you’re here? And yet you were the one -”

“I know!” he raised his voice in frustration, it didn’t startle her, not much did these days. “I was the one to fuck this up, and I regret that okay?”

Guilty Face. Check.

“And I should care, because?” 

“I was only doing it -”

“Hold up, let me tell you what you did and why shall I? You dumped ME because Steve came back and you, with your goddamn catholic misguided guilt or what the fuck EVER it IS, decided that what WE had -” She punctuates this by poking his chest. Having not seen him in three weeks this is what he has to say? No, and fuck no. “Wasn’t good enough -”

“That wasn’t -”

“That YOU weren’t good enough, that somehow my choice was always  going to be him over you.” 

He swallowed hard, his Adam’s apple bobbing.

“As always, right on the head.” he admitted with a sigh. “I just …” he spoke gently now, “ I didn’t want to have to stick around for the reality to sink in, and for you to look at me with this … pity. Before being with who you were meant to be with in the first place.”

Huffing with frustration, Peggy all but leaves him standing there in the kitchen, but he follows her into the living area of her apartment. Her bright yellow couch standing out against the red brick wall, the navy blue rug warm under his feet.  The sound of breathing and the patter of the rain against the glass windows was all that he could focus on. She was livid and rightly so, he had after all, unceremoniously, dumped her.

“What exactly do we have to do, to make you see yourself how we see you?”

We? He wondered for half a second, and then realised.

Then the creeping thought fell out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

“So you’re a ‘we’ now, huh?”

She glared at him.

“In the sense that we exist as two people who love you? Yes, we’re a ‘we’, GOD almighty were you always this dim? I don’t remember you being THIS dim when we started dating.”

He rolled his eyes then.

“So, I was right then - you and Steve have been -”

“ _ Socialising _ since his best fucking friend has decided to become a recluse, not answering his phone, his door… yes?”

“Are you sleeping with him?” he had the gall to ask, she wanted to strangle him.

“I think you should leave.” she spat.

“So that’s a  _ yes  _ then.” He added, like a brat, he knew he was a brat, but his heart didn’t care for manners. He had to know. 

“That’s a  _ fuck you, _ then.” she responded, pushing past him to go back into the kitchen. She wasn’t going to cry, and she hated that she felt like she could. She dragged out the pots and pans and angrily started chopping up her carrots. She felt him standing by the counter. 

“You know what, James, frankly you have some nerve, showing up at my door, to  _ insult  _ me. You’re a hypocrite is what you are.”

“Oh is that so?!” he countered, stepping closer to her, she turned around knife in hand. He didn’t even glance at it. 

“Waltzing in here  _ demanding  _ to know if I’M the one sleeping with Steve when -”

She stopped herself, hating herself for taking the conversation there. She had always hoped he would be the one to tell her on his own, and yet he never did.

Steve did though, Steve wasn’t about to take his second chance at life with lies on his conscience.

So her long-harboured suspicions about them were indeed true. And it hurt her all the more that it seemed that Bucky never confided in her, trusted her with his secret. 

Steve wore his emotions on his sleeve, the good and the bad, but it seems beyond jealousy, Bucky Barnes was locked up tight.

He moved closer still, she could smell his cologne, a smell she missed, a presence she longed for.

“When what?” he all but whispered, her brows furrowed with worry as he searched her face for the answer before her mouth gave it. 

Taking a deep breath she forged on. 

“When it was  _ you _ , sleeping with him -”

He stepped back as if she really had slapped him. Clenching his teeth, his jaw tightening.

“That’s bull -”

“He told me, Bucky.”

The look of betrayal was one she wouldn’t soon forget.

Just as it was happening she heard the door, the key in the door, and the too-cheery announcement of their entry.

“He has a  _ key _ ?” he whispered harshly, as if she just added insult to injury.

“Peg, you home? It is absolutely pouring it down out there, I almost -” With that 

Steve’s cheerful, soaking wet self walked into the kitchen.

“Oh, hey Buck,” he spoke, still full of cheer, now his face lit up upon seeing Bucky. 

Bucky on the other hand...

“Hey. I was just leaving.” he stepped back from Peggy’s personal space, but it was obvious that tensions were high, Steve picking up on this right away.

“Was I interrupting anything?” 

Bucky just shook his head looking from Steve to Peggy and then back.

“No, I … was just leaving.”

“You said that already,” Steve countered, folding his arms, taking up the doorway in doing so, so Bucky couldn’t actually leave without pushing past him.

“He came over here to confirm his suspicions, that you and I are shacking up. In finding no evidence of us shagging all over the apartment, he’s now mad that I know that you and he used to shag all over your apartment.” Yeah, so Peggy had had enough of the pussyfooting around. Both men looked at her shocked. She just shrugged, and put her knife down. The carrots, and dinner would have to wait.

“I -” Bucky began, staring at her, but then to Steve. “You TOLD her??”

Steve merely rolled his eyes, shrugging out of his dripping coat.

“Of course, I was shocked you didn’t!”

“Jesus Christ, Steve.” Bucky was blushing now. Peggy just remained confused, as if it wasn’t painfully obvious how far gone those two were for each other? 

“Jesus Christ what Buck, she’s … she WAS your girl, you think she would want to know -”

“No one wants to know that their guy is … is like that okay?”

It was Peggy’s turn to roll her eyes. Honestly, and the Brits were meant to be the repressed ones?

“Actually, this girl wanted to know the truth, that’s all.”

“Oh and you’d been totally fine knowin’ your guy was a  … a …” 

“A what, Buck?” Steve asked, and Peggy hated that she could see how the conversation, and Bucky’s reaction hurt him.

“Just … different is all.” 

Peggy and Steve shared a look, and it seemed to exacerbate Bucky more.

“As I was sayin’ … I’ll be going now.” He attempted to step up to Steve, yet Steve remained unmoved.

“What are we going to do with you?” Steve asked him, skirting another glance to Peggy, who merely shrugged.

“Look Steve -” 

“Look, Buck…” Steve kept him from leaving, his big arms doing most of the door-blocking, and Bucky wasn’t a small man, but Peggy was enjoying this rather odd show of male dominance. 

“We wanted to talk to you, but you’ve been avoidin’ me, and Peg, and frankly after what you did, I’m surprised she hasn’t kicked your ass.” Steve was smiling, Bucky was scowling. Shocker there, she thought. But Bucky wasn’t privy to their previous conversations, a conversation that was to be continued over dinner that night. 

“Look if you want my damn blessing -” Bucky attempted and Steve laughed, and Peggy swore Bucky was gonna bust a heart valve in anger. 

“Fine, laugh I’m out of here -” 

At that, Steve grabbed his hand as he made for the living room, and not harshly, dragging him back to where they both could see him. The confusion was evident on his pretty, sad, face.

“Bucky for the  _ loveagod  _ would you just shut up for five goddamn minutes?”

Bucky then looked to Peggy. She gave him nothing. No sign as to what this was.

“Peg and I were talking.”

“Yeah I know you done a LOT of that.” Bucky pouted. 

“And look we know that you … didn’t  _ leave  _ Peggy because you don’t love her.”

The brunet of the bunch then sighed, his shoulders slumping. Steve seemed sure, Peggy was still stung. 

“And we know that  you don’t really hate me either???” Steve asked, incredulous. Bucky just glared, as if to say, of course not.

“But you did leave Peggy, and you have been avoidin’ me, and frankly there’s only so much rejection a guy can take, Buck. I missed you.”

Bucky’s cheeks went a little pink then, and Peggy sorta kinda loved it. Watching this strange, foreign dance these two were clearly practiced at, right in front of her.

“She’s okay with us being what we were, Bucky. She ain’t judging us for nothing.”

Shocked Bucky looked to her, and she cocked a brow.

“Except the excessive hair gel usage, there’s just no need, frankly.”

Bucky let a laugh escape him that sounded so much like a sob, Peggy’s heart broke.

“And she still loves you.” Steve went on to say, and she was glad, she wasn’t sure her voice would work then.  “And I still love you.” 

Bucky’s eyes cut to Steve then so fast she was sure they’d both fall over from the impact.

“What - I mean … no … what?” He was so confused. Not that she blamed him. She and Steve had decided that if they were going to do this, it would be  _ together _ . Whatever terrifying reality that produced, she was still unsure. But she was sure that it was all or nothing. 

Nothing was set in stone, that’s what the dinner was for. 

The final stages of their little plan. But it all rested on a few big ifs. If Bucky wanted her back, if Bucky wanted him back. 

Lots of If, and's or but’s floated around.

“Peg said, and I agree, that with things how they are, how that we’ve all as far as I can figure, we’ve been given this second chance? And that it’s really an all or nothing scenario here, for me and it turns out for her too.”

“I don’t get it??”

Steve sighed softly then, his hold on Bucky now more gentle, a grip of his jacket turned into a slide of hand onto his neck. Bucky all but curled into Steve’s touch, and it broke Peggy’s heart a little that they thought they could bury this.

“Then listen good okay? We want you. Both of us, and... yeah, we want each other too …” it was Steve’s turn to blush then, for all his bravado, talking about desire still terrified him more than anything. “But, we also  figure there shouldn’t have to be a choice here, not after everything we’ve given up already.” 

Lost, Bucky looked to Peggy.

“He’s telling the truth. We decided why should there have to be an either or here? We all love each other, and I see no other alternative where we all get, exactly, what we want.” She added, coming to their side, sliding her hand into Bucky’s, and her other into Steve’s.

“The only question is, is it something you want? Because if we’re not all on board here, the ship isn’t for sailing.”

He squeezed their hands tightly.

“I never assumed this was even a possibility.” he took a big breath. “ I mean, ever. I couldn’t have imagined…” 

“So is that a yes?”

He let loose a laugh, his cheeks pink, his eyes watery. 

“Yes it’s a yes.”

Steve sighed with relief as Peggy leaned in and kissed her ex-ex boyfriend. One hand grabbed her ass to deepen the kiss, as his other hand held onto Steve. It made Peggy laugh, breaking the kiss, to lean in and kiss Steve. 

This wasn’t new to them either, the kissing, they had done a lot of it during the war, not as much as she would have liked, but beyond a few fumbles in a closet here or there, well, she was really looking forward to taking her time with him, with both of them in truth. When Steve leaned in and nuzzled Bucky’s neck - a tactic she would tell was something long practiced from a time when Steve would have fit perfectly in the crook of his neck, Bucky’s sigh of relief before he pulled Steve’s chin up for a kiss wasn’t something she’d forget. How hard it must have been for both of them, holding in all of those feelings, for fear of hurting or losing her. 

No more of that, she thought, more of this instead. 

Lots more of this, _instead_. 

  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  



End file.
